Reclaimed VHS Tape Weavings

We encounter woven structures constantly in our daily lives: the clothes we wear, the upholstery of our sofas and chairs, the rugs beneath our feet. Montreal artist Dana Dal Bo applied additional layers of meaning to her own woven wonders, incorporating a most unusual element into her technically and visually stunning works.

Dal Bo spent years sifting through Salvation Army donations, collecting homeless-home-videos for her series of VHS weavings. The works are a sort of homage to those intentionally or perhaps unintentionally discarded memories, dropped off at the doorsteps of secondhand shops.

Sitting for hours in front of an industrial Jacquard loom, Dal Bo skillfully throws a custom shuttle of the shiny tape back and forth across a warp of up to 1600 threads. Despite the minimalist results, those familiar with fibers will appreciate her unique and challenging material approach. The rest of us can marvel at the way this once ubiquitous object has been thoughtfully transformed.

• Read More: To see other projects Dal Bo had been involved with visit The Institute Of Every Day Life, a innovative art-lab led by Ingrid Bachmann in Montreal, Quebec.